


Now Is The Start

by windandthestars



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e13 Sanctuary for None: part 2, F/M, Slapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No,” he utters quietly, a sharp crack in the silence, not harsh, but unsettling as her hand slips over the silk smooth fabric toward the end of the bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now Is The Start

**Author's Note:**

> Helen/Will established D/s relationship. Slapping, mention of spanking and penance/punishment. Episode tag for Sanctuary For None Part II (season 4 spoilers).
> 
> Title from the song of the same name.

It's been four days since he'd arrived on what he's come to call the front lawn. It's much too grand, he thinks, to call it that but it's comforting having something the same as it had been before, a front lawn sprawled out in front of the Sanctuary, his home. It was his home now, even if it didn't quite feel that way yet. It'd only been four days, four of the weirdest days of his life.

They had spent most of the time since his arrival working; Magnus was Magnus after all. He’d known that night in the ally that her plan had hit a snag, that she wasn’t quite ready to show her hand, and while it had all worked out, there was still a lot she needed to do before the others could join them.

It had been a relief to see her alive, in a lot of ways it still was. He would find himself watching her, cataloguing the tiniest of details. She was alive, here with him, the two of them together, working like nothing had changed. 

Something had changed though, not like it had after the Hollow Earth insurgency. That had been a shift mainly made within her, the impact spilling over into their relationship. This was different, this was something that had changed within him. Something had settled. He had taken a step back, stopped holding tight to the desire never to let her go, that reverent need to cling to her: the sight and smell of her, the sound her heels made as she wandered around the room collecting books, the quiet wet noise her lips made when they parted to draw in a breath, release a sigh. She was here with him, something more than that was missing now.

It was subtle, something he hadn’t noticed until this afternoon. He doubts she had noticed, even now with just the two of them she's single-mindedly focused on her work. She hasn't been avoiding him or the silent implications, not like she had been before. This isn’t her ignoring him, this is her back in her element, slipped back into the part of her that had been lost so long before they had found their way to Hollow Earth the first time. She’s overtaken with rampant curiosity, although she tries to some extent to hide it. She’s glad he’s here and she trying to show that, to pay attention, but there’s a weight off her shoulders now that every move she makes doesn’t have to be premeditated, and she’s caught up in feeling weightless.

He thought perhaps despite that, she might have noticed and chose to set it aside, bring it up later, but the evening’s wearing on and he has yet to hear from her. She’s not working, and neither is he for that matter, but whatever she’s up to, the Sanctuary and their new home aren’t far from her mind. 

They had finished early for the evening and he’d left her to her own devices for dinner, something he hadn't done since he'd arrived. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, except for when she wasn't, but he wasn’t worried about that now. Without the distractions of a fully occupied Sanctuary and a network to run, she would realize she was hungry eventually and he knew she knew she should eat before she came looking for him.

They had parted ways- she’d been headed to her office and he here, to his room- quite awhile ago. It wouldn't be long now before she started to wonder, to worry. She would appear shortly, with whatever excuse it was that she had conjured up for stopping by unannounced. Picking up the latest copy of the Journal of Forensic Science, the same issue she had blown up weeks ago in Old City, he waits.

He's hardly made it through the first article when she appears in the half open door, balancing a tray with one hand so she can knock.

He looks up long enough to acknowledge her and then returns to the journal, sighing and slipping his finger along a line of print to mark his place when she coughs quietly, requesting his attention. She's standing halfway across the room, in the middle of the floor, both hands wound under the handles of the tray. He raises an eyebrow.

"I thought perhaps you weren't feeling well." She speaks quietly, but firmly, not hesitantly but cautiously. "I didn't know what you'd want, since you missed dinner." The clarification almost makes him smile; it's not like her to quantify her actions, particularly not with something so trivial. "I could make you a sandwich instead."

She’s baiting him now. She's waiting for him to say he's already eaten, to confirm that he's not feeling well. While the former is true, and the latter is a hopeful wish on her part, he’s not about to tell her that.

He watches her breathe, watches the way her eyes shift over him, sneaking peaks up at his face, examining him, trying to figure out what it is he expects from her.

He waits.

She takes a step forward and then another. He doesn't stop her and she sets the tray beside him on the table before reaching to brush a hand against his forehead. Her fingertips have barely touched his skin when she pulls her hand away. She looks confused by the stern look on his face but not deterred. She shifts again to press the back of curved fingers against his cheek and then stops. She draws her bottom lip in for a second, a short-lived gesture meant to soothe the pain his refusal had caused. He’s not pushing her away, but he’s not leaning into her touch either. He’s tolerating it but frowning, displeased with the interruption.

They had worked together for four days as they always had: together, as a team, his occasional teasing making her laugh, her megawatt smile making his chest ache with the way his heart skipped. Each night with their work done, he had drawn away without explanation. She'd allowed him this space without question, but it was clear that tonight, with their early retirement, she had hoped for them to spend some time together, the two of them without the constant distraction of their work. She wanted nothing more than to be here with him and he had denied her this not once, but twice as she stood now with her hands by her side.

He goes back to ignoring her, eyes gliding over the journal smoothed flat in his lap. He reaches the end of the article, flips a couple of pages and starts another before she moves again. She's reaching to ghost a pair of fingers over the back of his hand, a feather light touch meant to alert him to her presence without startling him, a tactic he often used with her. As before he doesn't pull away, doesn't try to stop her, but instead looks up at her pointedly and, before she can retract her hand, he slaps her, not hard enough to truly sting, but hard enough to startle her.

He’s only slapped her once before, the day after their return from Hollow Earth, her penance for the caviler way in which she had treated her own life. She had looked at him then as she did now, a stunned hand pressed not to her cheek but over her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears. There was a lot of baggage, he knew, that came with such a stinging blow, memories of Druitt and of other dark follies. Her reddened cheek has raised an aching pain in her chest, one not soon forgotten. Tonight, however, unlike the time before, she doesn’t speak.

"What are the rules Magnus?"

He watches a tear slip down her face as she presses her eyes shut. Her lungs expand and she lets out a shaky exhale. Helen, he knows she desperately wants him to have said Helen. There were many rules then, even one that might be applicable now, but as Magnus, as Magnus there was only one.

Her eyes fix on his hands, his finger once again poised over the page and her hand slips from her mouth. "I'm so sorry Will."

He waits and she lets out another shake exhale before repeating herself. “I’m sorry, Will. I never-“

She shakes her head, tipping her chin down, eyes searching his face, pleading.  
It’s almost heartbreaking, the way she trembles imperceptibly trying to stop herself from reaching for him again.

“Magnus.” He keeps his voice measured and steady, unmoving, steely compared to her warbling whispers. “What are the rules?”

“No ly- tell the truth.” She sags under the weight of the words, no longer able to grasp at half-baked excuses. They were done with that now. She had pulled the wool over his eyes and he had seen past it all. He had moved past it all, but she’s so used to hanging on, clinging, that she hasn’t let go. She wouldn’t let go.

She reaches for him again- subconsciously, stubborn even now- the twitching of fingers pushed away from her thighs. He shakes his head and she whines. Words will only get her in trouble now, but she needs a way to tell him what she wants.

It takes her a moment to make up her mind. There’s no scientific weighing of hypotheses and probabilities only silent pleas and well engrained habits. She stumbles toward his bed, rapid uneven steps as if unsure, afraid, and determined at equal intervals. He allows her, granting her unspoken request to stay. He stands only after she has stopped to press a palm pressed firmly into the bedspread.

“No,” he utters quietly, a sharp crack in the silence, not harsh, but unsettling as her hand slips over the silk smooth fabric toward the end of the bed.

There’s more room there than there had been before, a deliberate consideration in her redesign of his room. Like everything in this place, the room bears her fingerprints and no others; it belongs to her despite his ownership of it. Even when he finds the time, months if not years into the future, to add his own flare, her presence will linger softly, a hushed reminder that while he may mark her skin, declare her his, she owns him in every other way, steadfast and limitless.

She turns the corner at the end of the bed in sudden quick steps, halting as quickly as she had started to stare down at the rug underfoot. It’s some sort of fur, but from what he’s not sure as it bears no resemblance to its original form. She has to know though, she was the one who had tucked it half hidden under his bed, the one side peaking out to warm his feet when he stumbled out of bed in the morning.

She seems surprised to see it there at her feet, at the foot of his bed, the dark hairs thick and lush despite their slightly coarse texture. She toes off her shoes, sharp clicks against the smooth polished floor, and sets her feet firmly on the rug, brow furrowing before she kneels to press her hands into the rug as well.

He chuckles softly despite himself and she jumps, pulling back guiltily. For a moment she had forgotten the tears in her eyes and the sting of her cheek. She looks worried now, apprehensive, and for a moment he longs to redden his ass, bend her over his knee or over the steamer trunk she used to have in her sitting room. It’s a fleeting impulse though, one he tamps down sharply. Stinging reminders aside, in the long days after her disappearance he had made peace with her faults and forgiven her. Her apprehension may tempt him to do otherwise- he has never been good at denying her, at denying himself when it came to her- but he had already made his plans for the night.

He shifts his weight off his feet and sinks back down into his chair, the discarded journal set back into place on his lap. He watches her from the corner of his eye, her fingers roving through the fibers of the rug until she settles down cross-legged, her back pressed against his bed. 

He reads through a couple of articles, getting up once to return the tray of food to the kitchen and retrieve a notepad from his office. He spends the rest of the night making notes in response to one of the peer reviews. He hardly ever bothered submitting comments or rebuttals himself; not since he had left the FBI but he had his ways of making sure his comments and ideas found their way out into the world.

He finishes up, jotting down the last of his comments and making a note to dig out the original article now that their archives have gone digital. It’s gotten late and while he could stay up and get some more work done he wants to take advantage of the peace and quiet. It won’t be long before the 2am feedings resume and he’s running around putting out fires at all hours of the night.

He doesn’t have much here- a change of clothes and a toothbrush, everything else had been burned or packed away- so he makes quick work of getting ready for bed. The lights here, like most everything else seem to be intuitive and they fade then die completely as he climbs into bed.

Magnus is still seated on the rug, counting scientific discoveries no one has thought up yet or whatever it is she likes to think of when she’s resolved herself to wait. She may not have spent a hundred and thirteen years in a Buddhist temple but she has learned to settle down into waiting.

Sleep here in the new Sanctuary comes quickly and holds firmly. The last of his insomnia cured not by exhaustion but by the wonder of this place, the security. He’s not surprised to wake the next morning to find the artificial lighting simulating a sun rise across the floor, deep oranges and reds, the far reaches of which wash over the deep black of Magnus’ clothes.

She’s still seated where she had been within the confines of rug, knees bent to the side, head hanging, gaze fixed on the floor. Will blinks, watching her as he wakes. Her breathing is even enough that anyone passing by might mistakenly assume she’s asleep but he knows that she’s not. She would have spent the entire night awake, at first determined to satisfy his unspoken request, and later kept awake by the ache that had settled in her joints, the minute movements the span of the rug allowed not nearly enough to ease cramping muscles.

His feelings for Magnus have always run deep, but in this he loves her most. Magnus would always be driven, head strong and stubborn. In that he had no say, but with him she had learned to acquiesce, to apologize and make amends for the bridges she had burned not because she had to, to curry favor or friendship, but because she had truly and wholly invested a part of herself in that relationship. He reminded her of her mother, she had told him once, trying to teach an unruly and bookish child patience.

Patience was something Magnus seemed to have learned on her own, and in some ways she had learned this too. He had not asked her to sit and wait, to ache and long, but he had allowed it. He had allowed her to express her gratitude and her guilt. He had given her the tools and the motivation, the rug and the stinging blow, and let her put the pieces together and work through it all until she sat quietly resigned.

It’s an awkward scramble over his bedding to reach the end of the mattress, but without the rug he knows the floor will be cold and he’s not quite ready to deal with that yet. Seated on the end of the bed, his legs drop down beside her, swinging lightly to thud against the bed frame. 

“Morning.” He smiles quietly, running a hand over her head, her hair still perfectly curled and set.

She smiles, head still bowed and he slips off the bed, standing with a wince. He pulls on his sweatshirt from the day before and makes his way toward the bathroom. The room is warm but not as warm as his bed had been and that irks him. It had felt particularly empty without her the last few nights and he’s glad to finally have done something about it.

“Stay there.” He murmurs as he leaves her and by the time he returns from the bathroom with a glass of water, Magnus has stretched with irritable hisses, and perched herself on his bed beside where he’d been sitting.

He hands her the cup of water and stands, a hand cupped gently against the side of her face, to watch her. She’s peering back at him, subdued but smiling, her skin warm, wonderfully warm against his palm and it’s not long before he takes a seat beside her, arms wrapped around her drawing her close.

“Hi,” he whispers and she laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> For kink_bingo: spanking, slapping, possession/marking, and silk velvet feathers fur


End file.
